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Teammates Take Time Out to Volunteer

Twelve members of the CJ softball team spent a morning with the Moraine Community Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T.) patched up, in casts and incapacitated.

Fortunately -- for the sake of the students’ health and the team’s spring season outlook -- all ailments were staged as part of a mock disaster training drill.

“The girls are made up to look like they have various injuries that challenge the C.E.R.T. team during their final exam,” said head coach Dee Werbrich, who works for the Moraine Fire Division when not coaching at CJ.

The girls figuratively lent their lives and limbs to C.E.R.T. for three hours on Oct. 26. Exercises during the organization's instructional day were meant to teach citizens how to react to crises in their neighborhood or workplace when first responders are not immediately present.

“I didn’t have to do anything because I was playing dead,” senior pitcher Caitlin Mathews said with a smile, “but some of my teammates had eyeballs missing and broken arms and legs.”

The team has volunteered to play victims for C.E.R.T. for three years, an experience that gives new and returning teammates a chance to bond and have a little fun together, said Mathews.

“The girls do a great job in making it as realistic as it can be and have a blast doing it too,” Werbrich said.

The Eagles' coach purposefully builds service opportunities into the team's schedule. In recent years, softball players have assisted at the city’s Pancake’s for Prancer event and helped host a youth softball clinic for kids in grades K-8.